Amid Twitter’s $44 billion deal saga, tech billionaire Elon Musk has gained approximately 6 million followers on the platform.
The Tesla CEO likely had around 83 million followers before the Twitter deal. However, as of now, he has over 89 million followers on the microblogging site.
Meanwhile, a report by Time said that Musk’s follower count has been significantly boosted by fake accounts.
According to audience research tool SparkToro, Musk has nearly 7 percent more fake followers than the median 41 percent that accounts with similar-sized followings have.
By analyzing more than 25 factors correlated with spam, bots, and low-quality accounts, the auditing tool found that accounts that are on an unusually small number of lists, accounts that have no URL or a non-resolving URL in their profile, and accounts that have a suspiciously small number of followers were some of the most frequently observed traits of a sample of 2,000 random accounts from the most recent 100,000 accounts that followed Musk.
Recently, Twitter announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Musk for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at nearly $44 billion.
Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately-held company.
The purchase price represents a 38 percent premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, which was the last trading day before Musk disclosed his nearly nine percent stake in the platform.